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It’s a commonly repeated mantra among the millions of pirates who download Game of Thrones and other popular HBO shows: I’d love to pay for HBO, if only there were a sensible way to do so. They swear up and down that if the premium HBO content was available separately from expensive and largely useless cable TV subscription, their money would follow shortly. Well, now we see what their words are worth.

At least, we will a bit, as the newly announced “multi-year deal” between HBO and Amazon is not quite what the pirates have been asking for. It will grant Amazon Prime subscribers access to HBO content, but most of that content is at least three years old. The deal also excludes anything currently tied up by distribution contracts. This means that while the deal encompasses some all-time classics like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Band of Brothers,and The Wire, it also excludes some others like Sex and the City, Entourage, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Happily, the deal does cover at least a few more modern shows, like Treme, and early seasons of some others, like True Blood and Boardwalk Empire.

Amazon’s Fire TV streaming hardware will now support HBO Go, as well.

The HBO content should go live to Prime subscribers on May 21. This deal also brings HBO Go to Amazon’s Fire TV service, making Fire TV a full-featured media device, basically lacking only in Apple’s proprietary services.

The deal brings with it an increase to the value proposition for Prime, and may help compensate for a price hike that kicked in just days ago. Netflix also confirmed this week that it will raise its fees for new subscribers — though existing customers can continue at the current rate for another two years. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has been adamant recently that the streaming ecosystem is “very much not a zero-sum game,” and he’s probably right that right now the market is open and primitive enough to make adversarial practices unnecessary. That won’t continue forever, especially if Amazon continues to gain momentum.

This effectively splits HBO’s catalog into new content and legacy content, and twins the legacy portion outside of HBO’s own Go streaming service. Though HBO has a long-standing practice of selling old shows for re-airing on basic cable, or selling episodes directly through various online stores, this Amazon deal is getting far more attention because it concerns the much newer and less predictable streaming video market. So is HBO gearing up to release the Go we’ve all be demanding? Or is it looking to scrap Go in favour of an all-Prime model as soon as the broadcasters will allow it? (Read: Why Netflix streaming is getting slower, and probably won’t get better any time soon.)

To keep up its identity as the premiere streaming service, Netflix may double down on bleeding edge ideas like 4K streaming.

Both are unlikely. HBO’s library of older, high-profile content would be one of its main appeals to value in such a situation — a smaller but higher quality collection of programming than Netflix or Hulu. This deal with Amazon most likely shows that these older properties had simply ceased generating much income — and Amazon offered to monetize them again. It could also mean that a company which has never before handled its own content delivery is looking for a partner as experienced online as the cable companies are in the “real world.”

It makes sense that HBO would bypass Netflix for this deal — reportedly without even considering the streaming giant as a potential partner. Netflix has already carved out a substantial brand with its own original programming, and draws many of the same customers as HBO’s cable subscriptions. HBO’s inherent “specialness” would be diluted by inclusion on Netflix, and that specialness is its single most valuable brand identifier. Amazon, on the other hand, has produced a few mildly successful shows like Alpha House, and is badly in need of HBO’s shiny, high-class sheen.

In this, Amazon’s struggles might be working in its favour. Amazon has tried to style Prime as a direct Netflix competitor, but perhaps it should try to reinvent the service as a simple platform for content providers to host their unique programming without bleed from an aggressive second brand like Netflix. Other premium content providers like Showtime might consider following HBO into the Amazon breach, if the profits are there.

It’s too early to see much of a reaction from Netflix itself, but the streaming giant is likely keeping calm; with good mindshare and solid stock performance, it’ll take more than Six Feet Under to topple the king of streaming.

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